It's A Great Time To Be Wayne Brady

PASADENA, Calif. -- Carol Burnett loves him. Drew Carey admires him. ABC thinks he could bring back the variety show the way Regis Philbin resurrected the game show.

But all that adulation hasn't inflated the ego of Orlando's Wayne Brady one bit. Just listen to his reaction to receiving an Emmy nomination this month for his work on the ABC improvisation show Whose Line Is It Anyway?

"I'm not too proud to admit that I cried like a little baby,'' he says. "It's such an incredible thing. I am 29. I've been doing this for 13 years. And some people spend a helluva lot longer in L.A. chasing their dream. And I'm a regular on a hit show. I have my own show. I've performed on the Emmys. I've got a chance to meet so many stars and people who have influenced me. I can take care of my family. And now you nominate me for an Emmy?''

He doesn't expect to win when the awards are handed out Sept. 16. Most of his competitors for outstanding individual performance in variety are a bit better known: Barbra Streisand. Steve Martin. David Letterman. Ellen DeGeneres.

And then there's Will Ferrell, whose impersonations of President George W. Bush helped revive Saturday Night Live last season.

"I go into it saying, `Just the simple fact that my name can be spoken in the same breath,' " Brady says. "I've met Steve Martin, so I know he knows who I am. But the great part is even if Barbra Streisand had not a clue of who this kid Wayne Brady is, when she has to read that [he was nominated with her], she now knows who I am. And that's the best part of it.''

She hasn't called him?

"No, that's OK. We'll talk later.''

She might want to call soon, because when The Wayne Brady Show premieres Aug. 8 on ABC, his talents are going to be revealed in a way they haven't been seen on Whose Line.

He sings and dances. He impersonates James Brown and Sammy Davis Jr. He does an impression of his grandmother Valerie Petersen for the first time in front of the woman herself, the person who raised him. He performs musical improvisation with Justin Timberlake and Brian McKnight. A woman in the audience compares his smile to Julia Roberts'.

Don Mischer, executive producer of The Wayne Brady Show and a 30-year veteran of the business, is awestruck by his star. "I've worked with many, many stars -- Robin, Billy, all of them -- and Wayne has got more versatility and a broader range than anyone I've ever worked with," he says.

More versatile than Robin Williams or Billy Crystal? Consider that when Mischer sent Brady's variety show to Carol Burnett, the queen of variety, she watched it three times. She even went to see Brady when he was rehearsing and told him she loved the show. Burnett and Flip Wilson, Brady says, are his inspirations.

"She said, `I hope that you can bring us back,' and that meant a lot to me," Brady says.

ABC executives say they think Brady can bring variety back. "I don't think you can only put on what is already on,'' says Stu Bloomberg, co-chairman of the ABC Entertainment Television Group. "Whose Line -- who thought that we could put an improv show on and that it would work? And, in my humble opinion, it's incredibly funny, and Wayne is very funny. So why not try it?''

Bloomberg describes Brady as "so charming and so talented and so affable.''

Brady's first try at a variety show for ABC last year didn't work. But the network gave him the freedom to try again. "In TV land, you do something that doesn't work, you keep on going,'' Brady says. "It's hard to do a comedic show when the comedy isn't inherent. The first show was lacking in Wayne. It really wasn't Wayne. Finally, they said, `Just do your thing.' "

Now he's one of the head writers and one of the executive producers -- impressive for someone who's only 29. "The buck stops here,'' he says.

When he was in Orlando, the Dr. Phillips High graduate seized every opportunity. He worked at Sak and Civic theaters, Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, Mardi Gras dinner theater. "I was dogged,'' he says. "I would not let anything slip past me. That's just me. I'm lazy in certain aspects of my life, but in my career, I've been almost single-minded ever since I was 16."

"Loves to work, loves to work,'' says Brady's wife, Mandie.

He says he learned his work ethic from his grandmother. "She has always been proud of me, whether it was dinner theater, Vegas or a theme park," he says. She was amazed that he chose to impersonate her on his TV show. She thought he had taken one of her dresses for his deft impression.

Jonathan Mangum, one of Brady's co-stars on the variety show, started his career in Orlando, where he befriended Brady in 1991. They formed an improv group, the Houseful of Honkeys, and moved to Los Angeles. Mangum also performed on the road with Brady, and he auditioned for Brady's TV show. "He is amazingly gracious,'' Mangum says.